Google News Rolls Out Fact-Check Tag Less Than 30 Days Before U.S. Election

Google added a new “fact-check” tag to its Google News service Thursday. The tag will now appear among news search results with the service’s existing labels like opinion, local source and highly cited.

Google News’ algorithm will use ClaimReview from schema.org to connect fact-checking stories to live news articles. Readers in the U.S. and U.K. can find facts in the expanded view of the articles on the web and mobile versions of Google News.

“We’re excited to see the growth of the Fact Check community and to shine a light on its efforts to divine fact from fiction, wisdom from spin,” Google said in a blogpost.

The service, which aggregates news stories, has rolled out the new fact-checking label less than a month before the U.S. goes to polls on Nov. 8. The tense presidential race has seen several instances where fact and fiction collide. Both nominees have been accused of misrepresenting facts.

Google said in its blogpost that websites that meet the commonly accepted criteria for a fact-checking service can apply to have their service included.

“If we find sites not following those criteria for the ClaimReview markup, we may, at our discretion, either ignore that site's markup or remove the site from Google News,” the service’s support page warned.

The new label is currently available only for users based in the U.K. and the U.S.